Studio Pottery
Reconnect with the practice of making in this light-filled and spacious pottery workshop located in the heart of Belgravia.
Go here if: You are seeking a break from the noise of the city and are looking to connect with the practice of making.
What is it: Founded by Lucy Attwood and Gregory Tingay in 2019, Studio Pottery London is a light-filled and spacious workshop for all who are attracted to making with clay, from absolute beginners to more experienced potters.
Why you need it: Uniquely located in central London in the heart of Victoria as part of the Eccleston Yards development, the studio has been created as a place of calm and community. A carefully curated working studio and gallery space provides a perfect environment for city-dwellers to come together to learn and create.
Photo: Yiki Dong, Studio Pottery, London
What they offer: Intimate classes across the two teaching classrooms with six wheels in each as well as a dedicated area that has been carefully designed to give members premium space. The central area, with its library, kitchenette and facilities, gives opportunities for the community to socialize.
Members and students are also welcomed by a resident potter into their private studio for one-to-one throwing and mentoring sessions, while an evolving teaching team and an in-house technician — who monitor the studio kilns and glazing room — provide support for the studio community.
For inspiration, take a look at the curated windows and displays of historic and contemporary ceramics (some of which are also for sale to visitors).
We asked Directors and Co-Founders, Lucy Attwood and Gregory Tingay what makes Studio Pottery different:
“Our focus is throwing – working with clay on the wheel. The studio also provides space for hand-building. This traditional craft provides a counterbalance to the hyperactive, mechanised, and technologically saturated metropolis.
The hands-on practice of throwing opens dormant creativity and encourages therapeutic transformation. Engaging with clay, the practitioner slows down, assimilating technique and mastering knowledge through careful repetition. It is a holistic, gradual and joyous experience, connecting the potter to a living history of human making.
Our lineage flows directly from Bernard Leach and the 20th Century revival of studio pottery – enshrined in our name. At the heart of Studio Pottery London is the desire to form a community around a shared ethos and love of pottery in all its forms.”
— Gregory Tingay, Co-founder
“Pottery can be a wonderfully social activity, as well as a solitary path of meditative practice. Our studio respects both.
We provide group taster introductions, 5 week foundation courses, and run a regular schedule of ongoing mixed ability classes that you can book according to your availability.
Our expert teachers not only lead our group sessions, they offer on-one-on tuition, which is an excellent way to learn and grow in confidence on the wheel. If you would like the flexibility of coming in your own time you can become a member, enjoying exclusive access to our members area, equipped with several wheels and workspaces.
Our studio is also available for private hire, and our team has a wealth of experience arranging workshops for private functions and one-off experiences.”
— Lucy Attwood, Co-founder
Regional Assembly of Text
When faced with the possibility of a blank page and a typewriter, what would you say, and to whom would you write. An apology, a confession, a declaration of affection?
“A lovely little stationery shop.”
On a trip to Vancouver, I found myself in The Regional Assembly of Text thinking of sending a letter home. Established by the artists and Emily Carr graduates Brandy Fedoruk and Rebecca Ann Dolen to explore “text as a theme”, this is a store/ printing press/ design studio that offers quirky cards, tiny books, papers and printed materials. It also contains the Lowercase Reading Room, a cosy reading library of self-published books and Zines housed in a former storage closet. The Vancouver store has its duplicate in beautiful downtown Victoria, British Colombia, in a second store which has been open since March 2013.
The Regional Assembly of Text is gorgeous, with witty and heartfelt messages in abundance. It just feels good to be in it. But the reason I was really drawn to this space is that once a month they also offer The Letter Writing Club. Since September 2005, out have come the Remingtons and Coronas, with the invitation for people to type, or handwrite, letters to whomever they want, about whatever they want, whether letters to governors or girlfriends. No drafts on Word first, no time to mull over. There’s just the page and a postage stamp, old school style. The Regional Assembly of Text provides supplies, snacks and the space to compose.
As I won’t be here for their next session in a week, I chose a sheet to take away, titled “Heartfelt Letter to Follow”. The last (paper) letter I had written was to a friend when I was in High School. We were separated for the summer and pre-email, so we shared cute teenage girl letters of missing each other even though she lived a short car journey away.
This being Vancouver, I have a rainy day ahead of me, a coffee on the table, and now a pencil in hand, composing a note, but to whom? When faced with the possibility of a blank page and a typewriter, what would you say, and to whom would you write. An apology, a confession, a declaration of affection?
People talk about letter-writing as a lost art form, but perhaps the key part of that sentence is that which is lost. And maybe that’s what letters inevitably connect us back to, and why these sessions at The Regional Assembly of Text are so popular; we get to reach out again to those people, that feel like home, but aren’t where we are at the moment.
As it has rained every day the week that I was in Vancouver, we’ll end with the message on one of their greeting cards:
“Things to do:
In order to increase your level of accomplishment on a rainy day of your choice:
Answer the phone using only verbs beginning with M
Count all the books you own that have one word titles
Choose between elbows and knees
Practice drawing polar bears (mail the best one to your oldest friend, ask for one in return)
Squint every time you hear the word tomorrow
Feel accomplished.”
To find out more: www.assemblyoftext.com / Instagram @assemblyoftext